After I finished school one of my best friends and I went to Canada for the last weekend in April.  It was the first time either of us were going out of the country and though Canada is right there, it was still so different.  Especially since we went to Montréal of all places in the country.  You know, that city in Quebec where French is their primary language (thankfully English is too though).

Now, I am learning French, slowly.  I haven’t learned as much as I wanted to because of grad school, but now that I’m done with that, I can get back to having more study time in my week for the language.  However, I was proud of myself for being able to recognize a bit more than I thought I would while we were there.

Anyway…

We stayed in Old Montréal, which if you ask me, looks a lot more like Europe to me.  So I can say that it definitely felt like we were in a new country… it’s just that I also felt like we were overseas instead of just over the border.

For the record, Old Montréal is beautiful.  The architecture is amazing there.  It would have been easier to appreciate it if it hadn’t been raining the first two days, but that just added to the adventure that we had.  Sunday was nicer out and we were able to walk along the Old Port, the Archeology Museum, and the rest of the area that we were staying in to really get a good look at all the little shops and everything around.

Speaking of walking, we did so much walking on the trip.  I was so sore by the end of the weekend.  That’s when you also figure that we did Underground City, went back to our hotel to rest a little (and escape the rain), then we went back out to get a better look around the Underground City area when the rain stopped… in the same day.

All in all, it was a great trip and an even better experience to navigate a new country on our own.  Plus most of the people we encountered at the shops and our hotel were super-friendly.  I was glad to finally get up to Canada since I have a bit of history up there (one of my grandmothers was born up there – Nova Scotia – and I do have relatives there, I just don’t know them, haha).  Not to mention the breakfast at our hotel was fantastic and I love how Canadian money looks!

So, yes, great trip… and it was even better to be able to experience it with one of my best friends.